What's Here

Program Overview

Background Information on the Transforming Course Design Initiative

Several CSU campuses have initiated
course redesign projects, and others are being planned or in progress.
Examples of the goals, structure and timeline for these projects are
available on the CSU Transforming Course Design website. There
is a growing body of success stories of comprehensive course redesign,
to improve student learning while simultaneously addressing the issue
of instructional costs, in most cases with the support of academic
technologies. Examples of improved student learning include reducing
unsuccessful course grades and course repeats. Examples of addressing
instructional costs include reducing student and faculty time needed to
achieve desired learning outcomes. The most successful projects have
addressed instructional challenges in high impact courses by maximizing
student engagement, emphasizing active learning and using technology to
enable increased amounts of high-quality contact between faculty and
students. These exemplars display a high level of commitment from
administrators and departments, an effective level of academic
technology infrastructure, faculty development support, and appropriate
assessment of outcomes.

Goals: The focus of the Transforming Course Design
initiative is to support CSU campus efforts in this area, to optimize
the impact of those efforts, and to insure that “the whole is greater
than the sum of the parts”. Within this overall goal to facilitate the
design and implementation of CSU campus projects in transforming course
design, the initiative has the following subgoals:

Support
capability development and coordination in the knowledge domains which
are critical to successful campus course redesign initiatives.

Foster
collaborations across CSU campuses to share resources and effort,
including scholarly communities to engage faculty with their discipline
colleagues.

Identify
aspects of our policies, structure and facilities which may have
impacts on the success of these transformation initiatives.

Activities: In addition to support for campus projects related to the initiative, the Transforming Course Design team will be engaged in the following activities in the next few months:

Developing
a plan for system wide programs that serve the needs of campuses at
various stages of readiness in planning and implementation of related
projects.

Initiating a “CSU community of practice” in Transforming Course Design,
through the establishment of an inventory of existing and planned
projects, processes and resources on CSU campuses; developing further
contacts amongst related CSU campus initiatives; and supporting CSU
campus projects through the provision of advice and training, and
liaison with internal and external expertise.

Enhancing
the existing CSU Academic Transformation website and developing other
web-based resources and facilities to support campus and systemwide
course design projects. The websites will provide campuses with
information, guidelines and tools for understanding the strategies for
transforming course design, implementing exemplary practices in
transforming course design, and scaling course design approaches.

Categories for Proposals in Support of the Transforming Course Design initiative

While we expect proposals to support
either Demonstration, Capability Development or Collaboration as
described below, we will also welcome proposals which cross these
categories or address the CSU Transforming Course Design goals in Other ways see category 4 below?.
In all categories, the intent of this RFP is to support efforts with
broad impacts beyond a specific course design instance, either within a
campus or across multiple CSU campuses. Supported projects will
contribute to enhanced campus readiness, capability and partnerships to
achieve the goals of individual campus projects in transforming course
design – e.g., improved student learning, student success,
facilitating graduation.

1. Demonstration: Demonstration
projects are intended to enable campuses to support initial course
design projects which address both student success and instructional
costs. For example, requests could include time from the CSU Transforming Course Design
team or other experts to advise on campus projects and supplement
campus capabilities, or financial support to match campus funds to
allow Demonstration project participants to learn from other CSU campus
projects or through external workshops and conferences. A request could
also focus on scaling up a promising initial campus project to become a
compelling demonstration of transforming course design.

2. Capability Development:
Capability Development projects are intended to extend initial and
ongoing campus projects by augmenting the knowledge and processes
available for the campus. For example, requests could include support
for training or resources to establish campus processes or to upgrade
capabilities in assessment, faculty development or academic technology,
in order to meet clearly defined needs arising from campus projects
related to the CSU Transforming Course Design initiative.

3. Collaboration:
Collaboration projects are intended to support shared developments
across CSU campuses. For example, requests could include financial
support to augment existing campus projects in order to provide
resources of value across the CSU, and support for inter-campus
collaboration to extend the impacts of individual campus efforts.

4. Other: Proposals which fall outside these categories are also welcome, provided they address the goals of the CSU Transforming Course Design initiative as outlined on the attached Background Information page. For example, requests could include: